Blood Ascendant (Blood Stone Book 5)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Chapter Nine

  In the sideboard in the big room, where the trays of sandwiches had been earlier, was another tray laden with bottles, among them a familiar green label. The tray of bottles was inside the cupboard beneath the row of drawers. The cupboard had been locked, only locks were seldom a barrier for Sasha and usually only incited his curiosity to learn what someone thought was worth hiding away from the world. That was what had led to this discovery.

  Sasha turned the bottle until he could see the label properly and gave a silent whistle. It was Zelyonaya Marka, a domestic Russian vodka. He had drunk many bottles of it.

  Was it pure coincidence that Patrick Sauvage would have a bottle of the stuff in his house? It wasn’t an export. Someone must have brought the bottle out of Russia and given it to him. If Patrick Sauvage had visited Russia himself, Sasha would have heard of it. Sauvage was a huge star in Russia. His movies were incredibly popular there.

  Sasha picked up the bottle by the neck and grabbed one of the shot glasses. Through the closed windows, he could hear the splash of water and calls and laughter, so he made his way through to the conservatory, where he knew there was a door to the outside.

  The doors were open as they had been this morning, although now the heat was pulsing through them, warming the conservatory. California summers were uncomfortable. Sasha wasn’t used to the torrid blast of the sun at this latitude, so he tended to stay indoors where there was air conditioning, on the very few occasions he had been forced to visit in summer. Now, though, the draw of noise and chatter and distraction from his own thoughts was stronger. He could find a seat in the shade and drink by himself.

  There were many people in the pool, churning up the water and making it slop against the sides. Water was all over the brickwork surrounding the pool.

  Rory stood on the low diving board at the end of the pool. She was quite wet, wearing a one piece bathing suit that brought Sasha to a halt on the top step, his heart doing the same little tumble and free fall it had that morning.

  She was so very, very beautiful. Even with her wet hair streaming behind her, her body slick with water, she still seemed to glow despite the dazzling sunlight around her.

  “Twist and full somersault!” Dante called out, from where he was sitting at the shallow end of the pool.

  “Not possible!” Patrick yelled, where he was clinging to the side, halfway down the pool. “The board is too low.”

  “Want to make it more interesting?” Dante called.

  Rory put her hands on her hips. “How interesting?” she asked.

  Sasha traced the curve of her hips under her hands, the graceful arc down to her thighs, which were slender, but muscular.

  He swallowed and made himself move over to the tables. Nial was sitting at the one with the umbrella. Sasha sat next to him and put the bottle and glass on the table in front of him.

  Nial glanced at him. “Did you dig it out of Marcus?”

  Sasha stared at him, surprised. “I…yes. I think so.”

  Nial nodded. “Good.” He turned his gaze back to the pool.

  Rory was still waiting for an answer. Patrick had both arms resting on the brick edge while he considered the matter. “You two are too calm. It’s not hard enough,” he declared. “Two somersaults.”

  “How much?” Dante pressed.

  Roman and Garrett were floating in chairs, paddling with their hands. Both wore sunglasses. “Careful, Pat,” Roman called. “His last contract was over five million. The guy is loaded.”

  “So he can afford to lose more,” Patrick said. “I need more money for the movie, anyway. A hundred.”

  “Dollars?” Rory asked.

  “Thousand,” Patrick said.

  Sasha choked over his vodka. A hundred thousand dollars riding on a dive into a pool?

  “I’ll take that bet,” Rory said quickly.

  “You can’t bet, you’re a participant,” Garrett protested.

  “Wait, wait, wait…” Patrick said. “You know you can do it. So put the twist back into it and we’ve got a bet.”

  Dante snorted.

  Rory considered him, her beautiful blue eyes narrowed. “A double somersault and a twist?” she said.

  “And a clean entry,” Patrick added.

  “Impossible,” Sasha breathed.

  “I’ll take that bet,” Roman said. “There is no way you can do it from that little board.”

  “Double it,” Garrett said calmly. “My money is on the lady.”

  Nial looked at Sasha. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Watch,” he murmured.

  “Done!” Rory cried. “Nial, you’re adjudicating.”

  “I think they’re all good for the money,” Nial said.

  Sasha sat up, his attention on the board and Rory. She walked to the very back of it and considered the end of the board.

  Everyone fell silent. The only sound was the slap of the water against the sides of the pool. The astringent smell of chlorine was strong. The vodka was stronger. Sasha gripped the glass, barely breathing.

  There was no wind, not even a breath of a breeze. Crickets were chirping in the garden bed at the corner of the house.

  Rory lifted herself up on her toes, concentrating on the end of the board, then ran forward.

  As soon as she moved, Patrick surged through the water, moving faster than Sasha had ever seen anyone move before. He came up under the board, reaching up with his hands.

  As Rory jumped up into the air and landed on the very end of the board for the maximum amount of lift, the board bowed down under the impact. Patrick gripped the edges of it, holding it so it didn’t spring back up and couldn’t give Rory the lift she needed to complete the complicated dive.

  She gave a startled shriek as her impetus evaporated. Then, with a presence of mind that Sasha wasn’t sure he could have imitated in the same circumstances, she curled herself into a ball, tucking her knees up under her chin and hugging them.

  Rory hit the water in a perfectly executed cannonball that sprayed water up into a geyser that showered everyone. Sasha could feel the chill touch of the water against his exposed ankles, ten feet away from the pool.

  “Cheating! Flat out, bare faced cheating!” Dante yelled at Patrick as he did a lazy overarm stroke back to the side of the pool through the choppy water. Patrick was grinning.

  Roman started laughing, in great big guffaws that made him clutch his stomach and made the chair tilt alarmingly. He pointed at Garrett. “Two hundred thousand! You owe me!”

  Garrett reached out and lifted the arm of Roman’s chair and dumped him in the water.

  Rory emerged from beneath the surface and swam for the ladder next to the board. “Again!” she cried. “Double or nothing.”

  “Peter and his saints….” Sasha breathed, awed.

  Rory climbed out onto the brickwork, her body streaming water and pointed at Patrick. “Someone hold him back.”

  Roman came up alongside Patrick. “I will.”

  “Conflict of interest,” Garrett said. “Dante, you hold him down.”

  Dante grinned. “With pleasure.” He hopped up onto the bricks and padded around to where Patrick was clinging to the side. He whipped his arm around Patrick’s chin, lifting him up out of the water. Patrick scrabbled at his arm with his fingers. Dante held tight.

  Rory only paused for a brief moment, this time, then ran forward and took a high leap into the air, looking down to spot her landing. She flexed her knees as the board bowed under the impact and flung herself up high into the air, assisted by the spring board.

  Sasha held his breath as she rose into the air, already twisting before she reached the apex of her leap. At the top she folded over and tucked her head into her knees and rolled…and rolled again. With a snap of her limbs, she straightened out, her fingers cleaving the water. She slipped into the pool like an otter, with barely a splash.

  Sasha sat back, letting out his breath in a rush.

  Dante let go of Patrick’s chin, the
n planted his hand on the top of his head and pushed him down beneath the water.

  Patrick came up spluttering.

  Dante got to his feet. “You owe me a ton, even.”

  Roman was grinning.

  Rory climbed out of the water and walked over to the table where Nial and Sasha sat, trailing a river of water behind her, picked up the sunglasses sitting on the table and put them on.

  “You should come in the water,” she told Sasha.

  “I regret…I do not know how to swim,” he said.

  She studied him. “What can you do?”

  Sasha curled his hand into a fist, under the table, where no one could see it. “I can shoot a gun,” he said calmly.

  Nial smiled. “His sister was a sniper,” he said. “Sasha is being modest.”

  Rory sniffed. “Guns….” she said and walked over to one of the loungers farther along and settled on it.

  Nial considered Sasha. “What did you say to her? I’ve never seen Rory take such an instant dislike to anyone, before.”

  Sasha shook his head. “She merely defends her friend.” He looked over to where Dante was, on the other side of the pool. He wore what looked like basketball shorts and nothing else. He was flexing and working his powerful shoulders as he moved around the pool.

  “Dante can take care of himself,” Nial said, almost as if he had followed Sasha’s thoughts.

  Sasha poured himself another shot and sipped it. The other three men were floating in the pool, splashing and dunking each other. It was hard to remember that two of them were over five hundred years old. They looked like college kids, cavorting in the pool during spring break.

  Dante stretched hard as he stepped onto the manicured lawn at the edge of the brickwork. Then he deliberately fell forward, toppling like a tree, only to bring himself up short with his hands on the grass, holding him up.

  He did a series of press-ups, very slow and even, with no apparent effort, the muscles in his arms and shoulders and back flexing in hard mounds.

  Sasha watched, fascinated. The strength of the man! He was no vampire, yet he’d had power to spare to hold Patrick still.

  Dante shifted to one-handed push-ups, his legs spread to maintain balance. Fifteen of them, still without any sign of fatigue. Then he swapped arms.

  Now everyone was watching him. Sasha couldn’t read minds the way Dominic could, yet he thought he could detect a degree of awe in the way they were watching Dante pump out the repetitions.

  Patrick hauled himself up onto the edge of the pool and slicked back his hair, to watch Dante more closely. Even Nial was studying his every move.

  Dante switched to a full plank, then turned on his side, propping himself up with one arm. He slowly bent the elbow of his supporting arm, lowering himself down, then back up.

  “Oh, man…” Roman breathed. He was speaking for Garrett’s ears only, although as no one else was talking, his voice carried.

  Garrett nodded soberly. “I think he might even put you to shame.”

  Sasha had seen world class gymnasts perform such feats. They earned the respect of other gymnasts because of the strength and dexterity needed to complete the moves. Dante, who had muscle to spare and would be disparaged for the clumsiness such bulk would generate, was showing all the coordination and skill of an Olympic competitor.

  “One hundred pull-ups,” Roman called.

  Dante flipped himself to his feet and stood up. “You or me?”

  Roman grinned. “I know I could do ‘em. Can you?”

  “Where’s the bar?” Dante said, looking around.

  “Here,” Patrick said. He opened a wooden cabinet built next to the pool house and reached inside.

  Sasha saw Azarel standing in the open door of the pool house. How long had he been watching the antics around the pool?

  Patrick pulled out a length of hollow metal tubing. “Vacuum handle,” he said, holding it up. “Roman, come and hold it up with me.”

  “I’ll do that,” Garrett said. “Roman needs to preserve his strength for his turn.”

  The two of them stood with the bar between them. Dante took a grip of the bar, his hands spread. He nodded.

  They hauled the bar up into the air, until Dante’s feet were no longer touching the bricks.

  Dante raised himself up until his chin touched. the bar.

  “One,” Roman said. “Two…three…four…”

  Dante lifted and lowered himself like a machine, showing no signs of stress. Even as the count reached the eighties, his form did not falter. Sasha watched him, refusing to be impressed.

  Dante didn’t drop to the bricks when Roman called one hundred. He lowered himself until his feet were touching the ground, then stepped back from the bar with a nod at the two men holding it up.

  When he turned away, he was smiling. “Next!” he called out, looking at Roman.

  Roman shook his head. “Freak,” he muttered and moved to stand beneath the bar.

  “You don’t get tired or build up lactic acid in your muscles,” Dante said. “So you only win if you do it faster than I did.”

  Roman rolled his eyes. “Anyone would think you’ve never met a vampire before. Give me room, here.” He waved Dante away and reached for the bar.

  This time, Patrick and Garrett counted the repetitions. Roman was powerfully built, too. Sasha watched with interest the way the tattoos on his shoulders flexed and squeezed as he pulled himself up and let himself down. He also showed absolutely no effort, which was as it should be for a vampire.

  As he neared the eighty mark, though, Nial called out, “Forty-five seconds left!”

  Roman increased the speed of his lifts and for the first time showed a hint of effort.

  “Your chin isn’t hitting the bar,” Dante growled. “It’s called a chin-up for a reason, you know.”

  Roman growled. He kept moving, lifting himself up a touch higher each time.

  As Garrett and Patrick chorused “Ninety-seven,” together, Nial called, “Time!”

  Roman dropped to the bricks with a hiss of frustration.

  Dante just grinned. Then he tilted his head, as something caught his attention. He moved over to the open cabinet where all the pool cleaning equipment was, from where Patrick had pulled out the vacuum pole. Dante bent and reached inside and emerged with a football in his big hand.

  Roman shook his head. “With you a professional football player? I’m not going near that thing.”

  Dante tossed the ball up high, so it drilled through the air in a corkscrew motion. He caught it barely without looking. “Chicken,” he said softly.

  “Yep,” Roman agreed.

  “Just how good are you, anyway?” Garrett asked curiously.

  Patrick took the vacuum pole back to the cabinet. “Unbelievably good. He can aim that thing like a bullet. I’ve seen him do it.”

  “Throwing it?” Roman said, disbelief tinging his voice.

  Dante tossed the ball again. “Professional, remember?”

  “Dante’s throw was powerful, when he first started playing professionally,” Rory said from her lounger. She sounded almost disinterested. “Then someone pointed out that a long throw was not useful if he couldn’t land it exactly where he needed it to go, so he spent a year learning to perfect his aim.”

  The others looked at Dante. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead, he shrugged. “All part of the job.”

  Garrett considered him. “So, not only could you hit that barn over there, you could also make it bounce off, say, the space between the two windows?”

  Sasha looked at the building Garrett was referring to. Garrett called it a barn, although Sasha had seen cars being driven into it, earlier that morning. It might once have housed animals, but it was shelter for automobiles now. The barn was at the end of the property, a good fifty yards away. Between the house and pool and the barn was an acre of neatly mowed, emerald green grass. There were three windows along the short side of the barn that were visible from the end of the pool. The
space between them, from this distance, looked very small.

  Dante considered the distance and the target, still tossing the ball absently. “No warm up….” he said, almost to himself.

  “You need to warm up in this weather?” Roman asked.

  Dante shrugged. “I can do it,” he said. “How much?” he added, looking at Roman, Patrick and Garrett.

  Rory made a sound that might have been a sigh or a growl…or a groan. “Now you’re just showing off,” she told Dante.

  He shrugged. “They’re vampires. They had no respect for human prowess until ten minutes ago.”

  True. Sasha had to agree with him on that point, although he had no intention of saying it aloud. The vampires did consider themselves physically superior and usually with reason.

  “I still don’t think you can do it,” Garrett said flatly. “Like you said. No warm up, not even a practice throw, with a strange football that doesn’t even look is if it’s properly inflated. It’s impossible.”

  Dante raised both brows. “Double or nothing,” he said. “I have a hundred thou on the line.”

  “Two hundred thousand on a kick?” Garrett considered him, then the barn.

  The barn suddenly looked like it was miles away, to Sasha.

  “Prove it,” Garrett told Dante.

  Rory gave an impatient sound, got up from her lounger and headed back inside through the conservatory doors. The view as she walked away was just as good as when she was facing him. Sasha sighed and poured another drink. It would take more than a couple of shots for the vodka to kick in, even in this heat.

  Dante moved over to the middle of the grassed area, facing the barn. He studied the barn, his eyes narrowed.

  Nial got to his feet and moved over to the edge of the brickwork so he could see better. The others ranged alongside him. Sasha stayed where he was, in the shade of the umbrella.

  Dante took his time, considering the barn and the ball, mentally rehearsing the throw in his mind. Then he ran forward, in three long strides. He threw the ball, his whole body weight behind it.

  The four men standing by the end of the pool watching the ball streak like a bullet toward the barn. Sasha watched Dante, instead. The man didn’t wait to see if the ball struck the barn between the windows as requested. He was sure enough of his aim and his skill that he didn’t need the confirmation. He turned away almost immediately after the throw, walked back to the pool and climbed up onto the board.